Breakdown of Por un lado, la política me aburre; por otro lado, es importante.
ser
to be
me
to me / myself (reflexive) / me (direct object)
importante
important
aburrir
to bore
por un lado
on the one hand
por otro lado
on the other hand
la política
politics
Questions & Answers about Por un lado, la política me aburre; por otro lado, es importante.
Why do we use por instead of en for "on the one hand"?
The fixed expression for "on the one hand" in Spanish is por un lado (literally "by one side"). If you translated "on" directly and said en un lado, it would mean physically located on one side of a physical object, rather than comparing two different ideas.
Why is it la política if the English translation is just "politics"?
When you talk about abstract ideas or general categories in Spanish, you need to use the definite article (el, la, los, las). English drops the article for general concepts like "politics", but Spanish requires it, which is why we say la política.
How does the grammar in me aburre work here?
Why isn't there a word for "it" before es importante?
Spanish doesn't have a direct equivalent to the English subject pronoun "it." Because the verb ending makes it clear we are talking about a third-person singular subject, and the context tells us we are still talking about la política, you just use the verb es all by itself to mean "it is."
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